The summer's big zombie pandemic epic "World War Z," starring Brad Pitt, is about to infest theaters. In honor of the long-awaited film and the renaissance of rotten flesh in the culture at large, here's a shout-out to the five best zombie apocalypses ever seen in movies and on TV.

"The Walking Dead" (AMC): Based on the cult-classic comics, this highly entertaining yet deeply disturbing TV series is a clever mash-up of horror and soap opera tropes that sucks the viewer in with its probing analysis of human relationships and insightful performances as much as its epic splatter fest.

"Zombieland" (2009): This postmodern zombie love story is about a nerdy loner (Jesse Eisenberg) who teaches us the rules of surviving the zombie explosion while he finally gets a BFF (a pricelessly deadpan Woody Harrelson) and a romance (an early Emma Stone role). His favorite part of the corpse invasion? No more Facebook status updates.

"Shaun of the Dead" (2004): Perhaps the funniest iteration of the undead oeuvre, this is a cheeky British buddy picture in which two slackers (Simon Pegg, Nick Frost) happen to come of age amid a zombie horde. The flick perfectly walks the line between witty and terrifying. It's a cult hit worthy of repeat viewing.

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"28 Days Later" (2002): Arguably the scariest of the big-screen zombie plagues, this bone-chilling British movie spins around a deadly virus that leaps from monkeys to humans, leading to legions of rabid, superfast hordes chowing down on the world in a global pandemic.

"Night of the Living Dead" (1968): The Holy Grail of the zombie genre, this 1968 classic, framed in atmospheric black-and-white, gave birth to the modern pop culture fascination with the undead. George Romero's high-concept, low-budget parable about race relations in America also paved the way for the rebirth of the zombie as a metaphor for human frailty.